Ian Cho
The Waking Woods
© 2006 Tovian Records (9369999002183)
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Some years ago, a young man was faced with a strange question: If a forest could sing. what would it sound like? It was this curious query that led Ian Cho on a three year quest for an answer.
tracks
- 1 Dark Cloud (Intro)
- 2 The Flying Fish
- 3 Magic Summer
- 4 The Coral Horn
- 5 Piano Lost In The River
- 6 Time Stands Still For You
- 7 I Wonder... (Interlude)
- 8 The Waking Woods
- 9 Get Free!
- 10 Dragon
- 11 Angels (Interlude)
- 12 Sunshine
- 13 Hearts
- 14 Blake
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In his search for an elusive 'nature sound', Ian spent years treading the no-man's-land between melody and noise. Slowly but surely, he began to craft his own musical vocabulary of unclassifiable sounds and refigured instruments.
As more time passed, Ian's original musing grew into more than a question. It became a place. An imaginary mythic forest of flying fish, singing trees and chorusing waters. A place that most of us experienced in childhood dreams. A land that some of us still visit in slumber.
This is a place that Ian has nicknamed "The Waking Woods."
Album Highlights:
‘The Flying Fish’ is a dazzling collection of shimmering notes. Familiar and unfamiliar instruments ride upon a rhythm of radio swirls and organic humming that soars and tumbles like an ocean wave.
‘Time Stands Still For You’ is an ode to the childhood imagination. Ticking loops break apart into beautiful gossamer harmonics like a child slipping into a daydream. The ‘chopsticks’-inspired piano break emphasizes an ideal of childhood innocence - a time in our lives when melodies existed in hearts and minds rather than on mixing desks.
The title-track, ‘The Waking Woods’ is a pivotal moment in the album. It is in this track, that Ian believes he has perhaps found an answer to his original question. The song features a bristling field of raw noise that has been processed into an otherworldly choir. A midnight tree hymn. These pseudo 'tree voices' appear later in the brief interlude ‘Angels’.
‘Get Free!’ bears a narrative - an escape from the darkness of cities. The listener begins this tale immersed in an interlocking set of bells that symbolizes the maze-like quality of cities. As riffs proeed, the listener is guided out of this maze and into a brewing storm that awaits outside. A storm of ever-growing low end frequencies. However, just as everything seems lost... the impenetrable sky clears. What lies beyond?
An old piano atop a green hill. A place of freedom, where enchanted piano notes disintegrate into ether clouds. A trilogy of ‘water songs’ exists within The Waking Woods. First in the series is ‘Piano Lost In The River’ - a mesmerizing journey downstream
into a land of aquatic rushes and quirky piano flourishes. The second water song - ‘The Coral Horn’ - is an experiment inspired by nature’s own horn ensembles: seashells of ocean creatures. The last in this series is the album closer, ‘Blake’. Modelled on beach-life, it features lush windforms that spiral over melodic splashes of water. A lullaby that draws Ian's journey to a dreamy close.
Praise for "The Waking Woods":
"[The Waking Woods] has a delightfully humble and
wondrous aesthetic. It’s playful, resonating with a heightened childlike sense of wonder."
- Cyclic Defrost Magazine (Issue #15)
"Though Cho's instrumental palette is relatively small - guitar, piano, electronics - what he does with it is, frankly, remarkable. [...] The Waking Woods' soundscapes - evocations perhaps the better term - are both uncompromisingly experimental and wholly accessible."
- Textura
"A charming debut, making you curious of where Ian will go next..."
- Musiquemachine
More information on "The Waking Woods" at the microsite:
http://www.tovianrecords.com/micro1.htm